How to smoke ham hocks

This past year we purchased our annual pig from our local farmer Anthony Bauer of Bauer Custom Meats. Typically we get the ham hocks smoked at the processing plant but this year I decided to smoke them myself. This is how I did it.

First start out by creating a brine for the ham hocks. For my brine I use Brian Polcyn's brine from:

The brine is like most typical brines which is water, salt, sugar and pink salt. You combine all the ingredients and the add your ham hocks. The hocks were in the brine for three days then removed and dried a bit on a rack in the fridge. Then it was time to smoke.

Put the ham hocks into the smoker (here using a bradley smoker) and smoke to an internal temperature of 150 degrees.

As long as you have your own smoker and have room in your fridge for the brine process smoking your own ham hocks is simple and worth the effort. My wife used this in her split pea soup and it was excellent. Feel free to post comments or questions at the bottom of this article.